Playing by the rules

Its a funny thing but the first thing that people who don't shoot seriously and who are not interested in bettering themselves say  is that outside of exposure  its about  all artistry. In fact  to try and claim there is a method is anathema.   They like to believe that  rules or following a process problematically is killing the artist within. You got to just feel it. So then they will proceed  to show a lot of pictures that show all the artistry that  comes from just feeling it.

 Usually what you see, when you can be honest  ( Not always easy). The better the shot typically more they happened to follow the standard rules.  They may have not  have planned on following it, but the rules are really in place to help you understand how the typical person views things.

 Let's illustrate the point.  If your image is one inch across but 6 inches high, it might work. However for most people on your typical shot that won't work. If your image is crooked and the plane across the background is slanted to the left or right it might work..... But typically not so much.

But If  I have to think about all these rules then it will slow me down and  it will destroy my creativity. Is a  common complaint. Well  let's think about this a moment. If you have to slow down and think is that a bad thing? In fact a little deliberate action will increase the quality of  your shots dramatically. Will it  destroy your creativity... well it depends if your creativity is simply lazy or sloppy work then so be it.  However  what following rules allows you to do is it forces you to figure how to capture the image you want  by thinking creatively.

Balance, Rules of thirds, leading lines,  Golden spiral, there are a number of rules.   Your ability to understand the rules is intrinsically close to  your ability to grow as a photographer.   Point in fact the more you shoot the more you  learn to balance one rule against the others.  

Slavish devotion to rules of course is not the goal.  However  once you really comprehend the rules you will understand when you can break the rules. People get so excited about breaking the rules. Which is so not the point. What you do learn is that the more you violate the rules the more compelling must be the reason for doing so. So a slight departure would mean breaking a rule might be fine. However a large departure is going to compositionally need a strong reason to do so.

Remember great artists are noteworthy because they were able to identify how people view things and then  created art that exploited that, we would all be good to learn that rule.